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Ron Henderson owns AuntiesBeads.com, an ecommerce site catering to hobbyists and professional jewelry designers. The company's mission is "to make it easy for you to find all the beads, tools, supplies, and help you need for your beading projects, and to help newcomers learn the richly satisfying craft of jewelry making."
Ron started AuntiesBeads in late October 2001 using a service called FreeMerchant.com, and he immediately started using FreeMerchant's email newsletter feature. In April 2002, he relaunched AuntiesBeads.com as a custom Web site, having outgrown FreeMerchant.
He also began using GotMarketing.com's email marketing services to send out a monthly newsletter to encourage repeat business. According to Ron, GotMarketing's service offered more features and better design tools, which allowed him to scale up and publish a more attractive newsletter. By October 2002, his newsletter list had grown to 10,000 subscribers.
Ron used pay-per-click services, like Overture and Google Ad Words, to drive traffic to the AuntiesBeads site. First-time visitors frequently bookmark the site and sign up for the free newsletter, which currently has 18,000 subscribers, a number that would make many an email publisher drool, and quite good considering it is a niche market.
The newsletters give readers reasons to come back to the AuntiesBeads Web site, by including discounts and slightly personalizing each newsletter. Each newsletter includes the subscriber's name, and says, "you've been a subscriber since __."
The newsletters also include compelling content, like the "Design of the Month." This feature provides a picture of a completed jewelry piece with instructions, and provides links to each item needed to complete it in the supply list. Ron attributes the high retention of the newsletter to the content. "You have to keep people's interest. The newsletter can't be an ad for the Web site."
Each month after Ron sends out a newsletter, he sees an immediate spike in traffic in the 3 to 4 days following the mailing. He estimates that visitors to the site are one-third new visitors and two-thirds existing customers.
Every newsletter issue contains coupons, including 10% discounts and free shipping. Ron said people really like the free shipping offers, although customers making large purchases seem to favor the discount offers.
An email newsletter will only get you so far if you don't have a good Web site, products and customer service. Ron's wife, Susie Henderson, is a jewelry designer and used to sell at craft shows. She carefully selects the items that go into the AuntiesBeads catalog. Ron said the critical factors in AuntiesBeads success are the selection and quality of the items they carry; excellent order fulfillment (he said they ship out orders on Mondays that they receive on Sunday nights); and good customer service (they have a toll free telephone number as well as taking orders on the Web site).
AuntiesBeads has some diverse services as well. They have a line of instructional videos. They offer "make it or take it" items, so visitors can either buy the supplies and make the item themselves, or just purchase the finished item outright. They sell some items wholesale. And they have "Auntie's Artisan Gallery" where they sell items for designers on a consignment basis. They also have a Brick & Mortar store in Grapevine, Texas. (The retail store represents 5-10% of AuntiesBeads revenue, depending on the time of year.)
Ron said he is happy with GotMarketing's email newsletter services. The subscribe and unsubscribe features are all automated, and subscribers can choose whether to receive the newsletter in HTML or text.
At the bottom of the newsletter, there are clickable links, including "Click here to send Auntie's Newsletter to a friend" and "If this Newsletter was forwarded by a friend, you can click here to subscribe." And you can click on a link to order a 12-page, full color catalog for $1 (includes 1st class shipping). These features encourage word-of-mouth marketing and future purchases.
Now that he's been publishing his newsletter for 2 years and is experienced, Ron said he would like more flexibility in designing the newsletter. But overall, he is very happy with GotMarketing's service.
Lest you think Ron and his wife are super-human: while they started out as a husband-and-wife business, they now have 21 employees. And an interesting side note: Ron does not sell much on eBay. He said eBay is so large and broad that "It's easy to get lost in the shuffle." He found that the people buying from him on eBay were his own customers, a testament to the power of a good service, good marketing, and repeat business. Take a look for yourself at http://www.auntiesbeads.com.
And check out GotMarketing at http://www.gotmarketing.com. They have a resource page to learn more about email marketing http://www.gotmarketing.com/resources/resources.html.
A word of warning: if you decide to do email marketing for your own business, be aware of eBay's strict rules. Last year, we wrote about the pitfalls of email marketing http://www.auctionbytes.com/pages/abn/y02/m10/i23/s02.
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